Katrina fall-out

Lavish tastes of card-carrying lowlifes

Profiteering ghouls have been using debit cards distributed in the wake
of Hurricane Katrina - intended to buy essentials for evacuated
families - in luxury-goods stores as far away as Atlanta.

"We've seen three of the cards," said a senior employee of the Louis
Vuitton store at the Lenox Square Mall in affluent Buckhead, who asked
not to be named. "Two I'm certain have purchased; one actually asked if
she could use it in the store. This has been since Saturday."

The distinctive white cards were distributed by the Red Cross and the
Federal Emergency Management Agency and carry a value of up to $2,000.

"It doesn't say anything on the card other than alcohol, tobacco and
firearms cannot be purchased with it," the store employee told me.
"There's nothing legally that prevents us from taking it,
unfortunately. Other than morally, it's wrong."

The source told me that the two women who had made purchases with the
card each bought a signature monogrammed Louis Vuitton handbag in the
$800 range.

"They didn't look destitute by any stretch. You would never have said,
'They must be one of the evacuees.' ... The one that I dealt with
yesterday was 20. She'll be 21 next month." The source described the
reaction of other store-keepers in the mall - which includes luxury
brands Ferragamo, Burberry, Judith Leiber and Neiman Marcus - as
"outrage."

"It doesn't say anywhere on there, but it would have to be a good
amount to be shopping in here," the source said with a dark chuckle.

source: http://nydailynews.com/front/story/345030p-294601c.html

Bryan "The Monk" Chaisone